Choosing to SEE - Mary Beth Chapman [46]
You’ll come back and . . .
And I’ll watch as the sun fills a sky that was dark
And I’ll be remembering You
And I’ll think of the way that You fill up my heart
And I’ll be remembering You
“Remembering You”
Words and music by Steven Curtis Chapman and Caleb Chapman
In April or May of 2003 . . . no one really knows the exact day . . . a baby girl was born outside a city in China called Tian Jian . . . no one really knows exactly where.
There are two billion people in China, with eleven or twelve million in Tian Jian alone. Somehow this tiny infant was found on a riverbank, cold and blue, when she was about forty-eight hours old. She was taken to a state orphanage. From there she ended up in a Christian foster home for special needs orphans.
She was placed in the care of an Australian family who lived outside of Beijing. The orphanage had a Chinese name for her, but this new family called her Rowena. She captured the hearts of these people for four months until the family was unexpectedly transferred back to Australia. They would have pursued her adoption, but at the time there was no adoption agreement between Australia and China.
Little Rowena was taken back to the Christian foster home and then placed in the home of missionaries named Tim and Amy Hedden. Tim and Amy, along with all of their children, quickly fell in love with this little girl. They named her Maria.
Why Maria? It just seemed to fit her.
Meanwhile, our home in Franklin, Tennessee, had become nonstop busy. We were definitely done with adopting. For ourselves, I mean. We loved helping family and friends adopt, and as a result of an amazing staff and God’s blessing, Show Hope’s ministry was going great. We were helping families adopt orphans from all over the world and becoming more and more involved with orphan care and advocacy.
But as far as we were concerned, the Chapman family’s quiver was full. We were looking forward to Emily’s senior year in high school, celebrating her graduation, and pushing her gently from the nest into whatever college God had for her.
Then Steven was invited to China to do the music for a Luis Palau outreach there. One Sunday morning in April, Luis preached for Beijing International Christian Fellowship. Steven sang and led worship for this community of mostly Western expatriates. After the service, an American family serving at a special needs foster home came up to Steven. They were Tim and Amy Hedden, their four biological children, and two Chinese foster babies.
Steven was missing his two little Chinese girls back home in Tennessee, so he was drawn to the girls. “This is Natalie,” Amy told him. Natalie had the biggest Chinese eyes that Steven had ever seen. Her special need was a cleft lip, but her smile and charm warmed his heart. The Heddens told Steven that they were in the process of adopting Natalie.
Then the attention shifted to the next little one. “And this is Maria,” Amy continued. “She doesn’t have a home yet.”
Maria was a tiny drooling machine, with the smallest Chinese eyes Steven had ever seen. They made her look very mischievous . . . which, we would find out, fit her to a T. Steven held out his arms, and Amy smiled and handed her over. He hugged Maria and tickled her and told her how beautiful she was, intending just to love on her for a minute.
But then something unexpected happened.
When he handed Maria back to Amy, Steven felt like he was giving his own daughter back. The rush of feelings caught him completely off guard. He’d held dozens of babies and toddlers on this trip as well as all the other trips . . . but this was different.
As he left, Steven strained his neck to watch the Heddens as they turned to walk to their van, doing his best to watch little Maria for as long as he could. When he could no longer see her, he dialed my number. As I picked up my phone, I wondered what was wrong. My husband was all choked up.
“I’m okay!” he told me. “But the strangest thing just happened. I just met a girl named Maria . . .”
I don’t know how I knew what he meant, but